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355:4 -- The city of Al-Tur
The party and the dwarves from Al-Tur who have been staying in Whitmouth (Ria, Owl, Thogli, Yorick, Frigga) set out to make contact with the secret dwarven city. After a skirmish with Lord Silverstar's elves, the party makes contact with a dwarvern scouting party and returns to the city. The city is underneath a mountain, spacious, filled with many very specific shops, temples, garrisons, lodgings, etc. Griffons also nest there. The city appears to be run democratically, although the dwarves don't have a very traditional understanding of procedure. There are five council members, but every dwarf has a seat in the council chambers. There are about 2000 seats in the council room, and roll call takes about three hours. Notable Lore * Lord Silverstar is still causing trouble * Travellers are safe in Marillith's groves. * Al-Tur is under the mountain, and guarded by great stone Notable loot * Many sets of elven armor and arrows * Symbol of Turian *Poonhound Hedwig's Report Ghetsis, Scratch, Sura, Viper, and I set out to establish contact with the secret dwarf city of Al-Tur, along with Thogli, Ria, and two other dwarves. The Governor sent us with strict instructions to make a good impression, so I was a little nervous. We took the barge down the river, and Thogli bravely saved me from drowning. We went past some starving lizard people and Thogli and Ria generously gave them some food. We made it to Mariliths grove, where an elf was meditating. The dwarves were nervous but decided to make camp. Poor Thogli was sick. I think it was my cooking. He ate more than everyone else. More elves arrived in the night. We left the grove, but noticed that the elves were following our trail. Ria and Thogli explained that they drive off or kill elves this close to their city. We along our trail, but the elves hid from us by turning into trees. Ghetsis climbed up one of them to look around, then kicked it after he heard it grunt slightly. It turned back into an elf. We got into a kerfuffle with them, and they refused to tell us why they were tracking us, so Sura opened a portal under them to Zayura. An odd naked man stumbled out of the portal and ran off, but he wasn't an elf so I decided to let it be. One elf was still missing. We camped on a hill that night, and were ambushed by a whole squad of lord Silverstar's elves. I got angry, and they thought I was "a great dwarven stone golem!" Sura tried to teleport some of them a mile into the air, but accidentally caught a dragon in the portal. It was very angry, but luckily I managed to save us from a blast of dragon fire with a huge boulder. The dragon melted it just as Thogli got trapped in place, so I ended up defending him and then trapping us together in a rock to stop us being burnt. That was interesting. Luckily the dragon at this point decided to leave, grumbling obscenities about elves. Dwarven reinforcements turned up and killed the rest of the elves. The dwarven city of Al-Tur is magnificent. The entrance is a great crevasse, guarded by massive, hammer wielding rock golems. Ria spoke to them in the language of stone, and they let us past. We came into a great hall, so huge that griffons were flying around in it. There are balconies, and banners honouring the gods, market stalls, garrisons, temples - there is a temple to Ganev plated in gold, a steel temple to Mithras, and a red steel temple to Ashosh, and a lovely stone temple to Turian. All the dwarves have symbols of their chosen god. Some of them have tattoos. They have an intense, yet curiously casual, approach to worship. In the temple of Turian there was a huge diamond. I wanted to talk to it. Ria said I could, as I was "of Turian." That actually made a lot of sense to me. When I tried to talk to the rock, I found myself communing with Turian himself. I won't say much about that. Scratch darted up and touched the rock. He got a stone arm for his troubles. Turian asked to speak to Sura, too. She also has a stone arm now. I'm not sure what that was about. Not my business. We all went off and had a look around after that. Scratch came back talking about another dwarven wizard, which is fantastic. I can't wait to go back and meet him. Viper and Sura went shopping. Ghetsis got a tour of the council chamber. Apparently Ash-hammers hammer now lives there, and it's collectively owned by all the dwarves there. There was a gigantic chandelier too, apparently. He couldn't stop talking about it. I... also went and had a look around. Thogli showed me some interesting things. It was very nice. We presented ourselves to the council. Vice councillor Freman asked me for my honest opinion of whether an alliance with Whitmouth would be a good idea. I felt that having just acknowledged my debt to Turian I had an obligation to tell the truth. I said that for the dwarves, there would be some good things, but would also be some bad things. I said that the people of Whitmouth don't act as a unified whole and are unpredictable. It turned out there were about 60 people holding a truth detection spell on me, so they ended up impressed by my answer. They presented Whitmouth with a small, lightning covered hammer and declared that Whitmouth citizens are welcome to visit now. I realised we didn't have a gift and panicked briefly, until Ria presented something from Whitmouth which she said was blessed by Turian, since she found it in the ground. It was my lost Grimmoire of Accountancy magic! I'm glad it's gone to good use, but HOW ON EARTH DID IT END UP THERE? Sura's Report Once again, this time at the end of Spring, Asha's house is invaded, this time by a group of adventurers stepping out of a shadow portal in his living room. A shield and a couple of folded pieces of paper follow them through. After some angry shouting and attacking one of the adventurers with a beanbag, he calms down and listens to their story. Afterwards, he grudgingly invites them all to stay for dinner, and after everyone has eaten and gone home he takes one of the pieces of paper to the Wyvern's Rest and pins it on the noticeboard: “Let it be known that the Dwarven city of Al-tûr is henceforth an ally of Whitmouth and its citizens should be treated with utmost respect. For any interested, I will give an account of how this alliance came to pass. Hedwig put out a call for adventurers to aid in setting up diplomatic relations with the Dwarven city of Al-tûr. The Dwarves who aided us in the battle against the Dread Lords—Ria, Thogli, Owl, Yorick and Frigga—agreed to help her get to their city, knowing she held no ill-will towards them. I joined immediately. Ria, Owl, and the other Dwarves of Al-tûr are worthy friends, and I was eager to see their home. Before we could leave, however, I had to resurrect the troublesome Scratch, who had gone and gotten himself zombified. Ria seemed quite unsettled that I was able to use magic to resurrect without divine aid. We journeyed up the river until we reached Marillith’s Grove, where we stayed a night so that we could show the Dwarves that it is a safe haven. There we encountered a small group of elves, who of course did us no harm inside the grove, but they were caught following us as we approached the Dwarven city. I dealt with three of them by simply removing them from the continent. Unfortunately the fourth one got away. We returned to the clearing where the signal fire was being set up to summon a Dwarven escort to show us the way. Ria, Thogli and Owl could have shown us, of course, but they understandably preferred us to use the accepted method for requesting passage to the city. In the night we were attacked by a large squadron of Elves. They appeared to be Lord Silverstar’s troops. They were no doubt hoping to learn the location of the Dwarven city. I am now even more determined to someday find Silverstar and shove a fireball down his throat. We eventually defeated them, although not without accidentally bringing a dragon into the battle. The dragon seemed to blame the Elves for this interruption of its flight, so hopefully this won’t come back to bite me… We may not have fared so well in the battle had not a small army of Dwarves arrived at exactly the right time to overrun the Elven squadron and wipe out the last of them. At daybreak we carried on to the city while a group of Dwarves stayed behind to cover up any sign of the battle and remove any trace of our passing. They are very determined not to allow the Elves to find their city, and with good reason. The city of Al-tûr is magnificently built. A vast underground city, with a great cavern holding many buildings and temples. Dwarves seem to live in the temple of the god they worship. Ganev, Mithras and Ashosh seem to be the most popular, with Tûrian having fallen out of favour. We stayed in Tûrian’s temple, however, as he is the god Ria follows. I ended up talking to Tûrian, almost by accident. He seems strangely likeable, for a god. We were allowed to freely explore the city. I think Hedwig got a grand tour. I visited the temple of Ashosh, knowing Asha would be sad if I didn't bring back word of his fellow devotees. Interestingly, they had images of Ash-heart and Ash-hammer in the temple, although they didn't seem to know much about them. One of the priests there gave me a shield, which is no doubt intended for Asha, judging by the symbol on it. I find the Dwarves oddly likeable, even the priests. They are boisterous and friendly, and cheerfully violent. The next day we were invited to a council meeting at which we presented a letter from the Governor, proposing an alliance. An alliance was agreed upon, although Whitmouth will have to prove itself worthy of their complete trust before they reveal their city to too many. I find this city fascinating and I never got a chance to pay Owl back the debt I owe him, so I have decided to stay in Al-tûr for now. I have sent the shield through with Hedwig and the others, who will make sure Asha gets it. For anyone who cares; don’t miss me too much. I will visit Whitmouth every now and then. Now that I know where the city is it will not be hard to walk back and forth through the shadows." Category:Dwarves Category:Al-Tur Category:Turian Category:Actual Play Category:Lord Silverstar